THE NC ELECTIONS DECISION
Greig Smith, City Council Member, decided to take the spotlight and make a motion to save a few dollars by taking the Neighborhood Council elections (affecting 89 of 90 NCs) out from the City Clerk's responsibility and give to the NCs to save some of the unspent funding that the Clerk's Office was allocated. Well, it was not anything that Mr. Smith could have spent much time considering before jumping on this idea- A motion to shift the elections from the City Clerk to the Neighborhood Councils as had been the case UNTIL THIS YEAR'S ELECTIONS, and that change was something that the Council approved some time back, at more than a year ago.
CM Smith tried to scoop up unspent funds from the City Clerk and leave NCs to finish the election with NO time to arrange the changes and NO funding to pay for any outside expenses. The City Clerk took the job, and I think it was done for the City to keep them busy in this non-election year for the City, and get funding from the NCs budget.
To do this change now would be more than a bad move. NCs have proposed taking over their elections for the NEXT election cycle- in 2012, I believe, not NOW when there's an elaborate process already constructed to be followed by all NCs that would go out the window if it was broken down among the 89 NCs now. So we could have a bad election, a lot of irregularities and where any challenges are made, the city has to check into it, especially if anyone challenges something with a lawsuit, a best bet for corrective action if something is not right with any of the elections.
To sum it up, CM Smith would get some change back from the very expensive City Clerk processing of the election but lots of that has already been spent with 9 regional elections to be held from now to June. All that work and planning would be mostly wasted if not all wasted.
On Tuesday, the Council voted to approve an amendment, based on another Education and Neighborhoods Committe recommendation, that allows the elections to continue and see if any cost saving measures can be applied to provide any money saved to go back to the Reserve fund.
NC FUNDS- ROLLOVER FUNDS SWEPT
The NCs that did not spend all funds alloted by the end of each fiscal year that runs from July to June, used to have that money roll over into the next Fiscal Year's funding. That is no more as the City Council is furiously looking for was to collect more dollars in the current budget crisis. Some funds for each NC can be paid from that rollover account IF documentary proof of spending commitments with specified requirements can be established. That just means that funded but not paid items will get paid, provided that necessary documents are presented for accounting proof. A memo with a list of requirements has been sent to each NC's board members for compliance before an April date for cut-off date to use this exception procedure.
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